Category Archives: Broadcast

You’ve got to give Frank Buckley credit. This savvy Canadian came up with one of the best (or worst, depending on how you look at it) marketing slogans. William Knapp Buckely moved to Toronto from Nova Scotia in 1914, where he worked as a pharmacist.

During the flu epidemic in 1918, he invented a cough remedy called Buskley’s Mixture. It included herbal ingredients such as ammonium carbonate, potassium bicarbonate, camphor, menthol, Canada balsam (Abies balsamea), pine needle oil, and a tincture of capsicum. It is promoted for relief of coughs and sore throats for up to six hours.

He set up the W.K. Buckley Ltd company in 1920 and, within 20 years, went global with its marketing. When senior Buckley died in 1978, son Frank became president of the company and came up with the slogan, “It tastes awful, and it works!” When asked about the famous concoction, Frank admitted they “can’t get rid of the taste. If we do, we will be just another ‘me too’ cough medicine.

It has been rumoured to sell on Amazon for ten times the original price.

Few countries in the world have a younger and better educated Prime Minister than the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. This well educated young man is the second youngest Prime Minister of Canada, second only to Joe Clark. And he is the first elected Prime Minister who is the child of a previous elected Prime Minister. He is the son of Pierre Trudeau, former Prime Minister of Canada. He has performed some amazing feats, one of which was to lead his Liberal party from third place (by the number of seats) to first place, thus winning a landslide victory. He had the largest increment in number of seats of any party in Canadian history. It is not surprising, then, that Forbes Magazine ranks him among the most powerful persons in the world. He stands 69th in that list.

Justin Trudeau was born Christmas eve in 1971, while his father was still in office. Despite repeated protests from his wife, Pierre Trudeau was permitted into the delivery room. Little did they know that their son would follow in his father’s footsteps. In fact, in April 1972, American President Nixon raised a toast “Tonight, we’ll dispense with formalities. I’d like to toast the future prime minister of Canada — to Justin Pierre Trudeau.” The Prime Minister noted that should this come true, he would want his son to have “the grace and skill of the President” (Nixon). In April 1972, Nixon gave a champagne toast during a buffet meal. His remarks have become known as the Nixon prophecy. “Tonight, we’ll dispense with formalities. I’d like to toast the future prime minister of Canada — to Justin Pierre Trudeau.”

In 2009, Trudeau spoke of his parent’s marriage. “They loved each other incredibly, passionately, completely. But there was 30 years between them and my Mom never was an equal partner in what encompassed my father’s life, his duty, his country.”

Since childhood, Justin was given the “normal” treatment, to make sure that he was raised without any unreasonable privileges. He was sent to a public school, and used the school bus (as opposed to a limousine) to his school.

Later in life, Justin Trudeau has used his public status to promote various causes. For instance, he and his family, started the Kokanee Glacier Alpine Campaign for winter sports safety in 2000, two years after his brother, Michel Trudeau, died in an avalanche during a ski trip.

In 2002, Trudeau criticized the British Columbia’s decision to suspend its funding for a public avalanche warning system.

In 2005, Trudeau fought against a proposed $100 million zinc mine that he argued would poison the Nahanni River, a United Nations World Heritage Site in the Northwest Territories.

He became involved with the Liberal Party from a young age, and that involvement progressed over the years. He won the party’s nomination in 2007, and in 2015, he led his party to win the elections in one of the biggest upsets in the Canadian political history. The rest, so far, is history.
For a good laugh, just watch the short video below. Some Americans’ thought on who Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is.

Canada is a great country, having seen mostly peace for all of its existence, and being one of the countries whose history is almost impeccably laudable. Building that amazing history has partly been due to the fact that our leaders have mostly done the right thing for our country. And when the topic of good leaders come, our modern history has seen one whose name always stands out. Pierre Trudeau, the father of current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been an inspiration for an entire generation, with his wonderful period as a Prime Minister.

A personality that dominated the entire country with such ferocity as never seen in our country’s history, Pierre Trudeau had a great career as a popular political figure, loved by many. Beginning his career as a lawyer and activist in Quebec politics, Trudeau joined the Liberal Party in 1960s, and was quickly appointed the Parliamentary Secretary of Lester B. Pearson. He went on to become the Minister of Justice of the country. Such was his following that some even give it the term “Trudeaumania.” He stayed as Prime Minister for a long period, before resigning from his post finally in 1984. His leadership has been seen as a remarkable, and often favorably polarizing period for Canada.

An example of him holding tight to his decision in a crisis is the FLQ episode. Canadians were shocked on October 19, 1970 when Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and the House of Commons passed the War Measures Act.

The federal and Quebec governments where struggling with the Front de Liberation du Quebec(FLQ). The had kidnapped British Trade Commissioner James Cross on October 5. They held him for a ransom of $500,000 and demanded that the CBC broadcast the FLQ manifesto.

Then they abducted Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte on October 10; his body was discovered eight days later.

At one point, from the steps of parliament, the press asked him about the extreme implementation of the War Measures Act, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau replied, “Just watch me.” That statement would forever become a part of Trudeau’s legacy.

Some of his biggest national achievements during his term as Prime Minister were suppressing the Quebec sovereign movement, and building Canada as a nation with unity as a core principle. He is also known for introducing bilingualism as official policy of Canada, and for his Patriation of the Constitution. It was under him that Canada stopped being ruled by British laws that could be changed by the British, and it was the moment when Canada finally got sovereignty. This event has had him hailed as the “father of modern Canada”.

Every great person has critics, and so did Pierre Trudeau. His critics impugn him with claims of arrogance and poor economic management, and of having centralized the management of Canada (which has been hailed as a very good thing by others), thus robbing Quebec of the culture and economy of Prairies. But whatever the naysayers speak, Trudeau has been consistently shown up in a list of the greatest Prime Ministers of Canada.

Pierre Trudeau has been considered one of the most loved, and the most hated of the Canadian Prime Ministers. This is because of the charisma and confidence that he held, along with his focus on uniting Canada and making sure that the country has one holistic identity. But he is also known for his antipathy towards his political opponents, and his dislike for any sort of compromise have also gained him some critics. In fact, it has been said the it was Mackenzie King, who was the only other person who had matched such levels of electoral success as Pierre Trudeau. This mad made Canada what it is today, fought for recognition, and suppressed any factional uprisings to make the country whole. That is something that is going to be on the history books forever.

The Brothers-in-Law was a Canadian satirical musical group active in the 1960s and early 1970s, recording many popular record albums and creating the occasional controversy.

The group was born in 1963 by four police officers in Windsor, Ontario (hence the name Brothers-in-Law). The group’s collection consisted of musical satire making fun at the Canadian government, the law, and buyer issues. They performed and recorded a mix of original songs and adaptations of folk and stage tunes.

The band’s most popular recording was the album Oh! Oh! Canada, which was released in 1965, which sold between 100,000 and 275,000 copies (sources differ as to the exact number). The album’s best-known songs included “Rally Around the New Flag“, which lampooned the extensive political discussions over the “Maple Leaf” national flag design.

The band recorded five albums of songs and a number of singles in Canada. They also recorded an album for release in the United States which included a new rendition of “The Pill” and “Canada-U.S.A.”, a song about Canadian-American similarities and the long-standing debate over whether Canada should become the 51st state.

The original members of the band included songwriter Alec Somerville on banjo, Howard Duffy on the guitar, Larry Reaume on the guitar, and Ken Clarke on bass. In 1965, Clarke left the band and replaced by schoolteacher Bob Lee. But a year later when Duffy left the band in 1966, he was not replaced. The group members maintained their regular jobs, treating their musical career as a sideline and only giving intermittent concerts.

The group officially disbanded in the early 1970s, but in the early 1980s, a compilation album named, Oh! Oh! Canada, Eh? was released. (The appending of the phrase “Eh?” to the title suggests its release was inspired by the success of Bob and Doug MacKenzie.).

In 2008, the Quebec-based label Unidisc reissued most of the group’s albums over a three-volume CD series. Volume 1 collected Oh! Oh! Canada and Strike Again; Volume 2 featured Expose ’67 and Onward the Establishment, while Volume 3 presented The Pill and the previously never released recordings featured in the 1980s compilation Oh! Oh! Canada, Eh?

Discography

Oh! Oh! Canada (1965)

The Brothers-in-Law Strike Again (1966)

Expose ’67 (1967)

Expose ’67 Plus (1967) – same album as above, with extra tracks

The Pill (US release; year unknown, c.1967)

Onward the Establishment (1969)

Oh! Oh! Canada, Eh? (early 1980s compilation)

The Brothers in Law (2008) – three-volume CD series collecting most of the group’s albums

Canadian music. It’s actually interesting. Here are just a few highlights:

“American Woman” by the Guess Who (based in Winnipeg, Manitoba) hit the top of the Billboard Hot 100 list for three weeks in May 1970.

Musician Burton Cummings was born on December 31, 1947 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He was a member of The Guess Who and was the first Canadian to have a quadruple platinum-selling album in the U.S. for his 1978 album Dream Of A Child.

Bryan Adams, Singer/songwriter, was born in Kingston, Ontario on November 5,1959. He was the first Canadian musician to sell one million alburms in Canada with his 1984 album Reckless.

Anne Murray was born in Springhill, Nova Scotia on June 20, 1945. She was the first solo Canadian female artist to be awarded an American Gold album (500,000 sales) in 1970 with her second album This Way Is My Way. It featured the well-known hit “Snowbird.”

Shania Twain, Canadian country music star, was born Windsor, Ontario on August 28, 1965. Her second album (1995) The Woman in Me, holds the record for most weeks at Number One on Billboards’s country album chart. It resided there for 29 weeks at the top and has sold more than 7.7 million copies.

Alanis Morissette, musician, was born in Ottawa on June 1, 1974. She still holds the record for the best-selling American début for a female solo artist, for her 1995 album Jagged Little Pill. The album won four Grammys and has sold more than 33 Million copies.

The band April Wine (from Halifax, Nova Scotia) became the first Canadian group to make a Platinum album (100,000 sales) in Canada just for advance sales, for The Whole World’s Goin’ Crazy which was released in September 1976. They also hold the record as the first tour to gross $1 million.

Céline Dion was born on March 30, 1968, in Charlemagne, Quebec. She was the first Canadian to receive a Gold Record in France. She did this in 1983 at just 15 years old.

Justin Bieber was born in Stratford, Ontario, on March 1, 1994. He is the first Canadian musician with five Number One albums on the Billboard 200 chart before turning 19 years old. He achieved this for his album My World 2.0 (2010), Under the Mistletoe (2011), The Remixes (2011), Believe (2012), Believe Acoustic album (2013).

I hope you enjoyed the post. Who are your favourite Canadian musicians?

Norman McLaren, of the animation department, National Film Board of Canada, drawing directly on film

Animator and film director, Norman McLaren, was born on April 11, 1914. He is best remembered for his work at the NFB (National Film Board) where he produced the film “Neighbours.” Besides the brilliant combination of visuals and sound, the film has a very strong social message against violence and war. For this work alone, he received the Academy Awards Oscar and Academy Awards Best Short Subject, and the Canadian Film Award (1953).

Norman McLaren was a pioneer in a number of areas of animation and filmmaking, including drawn-on-film animation, visual music, abstract film, pixilation and graphical sound. His early experiments with film and animation included actually scratching and painting the film stock itself, as he did not have ready access to a camera.